While practicing or competing in martial arts activities such as karate, one participant uses open hands and fists to inflict blows upon the other participant's body and head. These blows may result in an unintentional injury unless, of course, the force of the blow is lessened prior to physical contact. Such lessening may be achieved by the participants either wearing protective gear or by delivering less than full blows, i.e. pulling punches. During karate contests, points are scored for the nature and number of blows delivered. Consequently, spectator appeal of the sport as well as a test of participants' skills would be reduced if the delivery of the blows had to be restricted in order to avoid injury. Additionally, the benefits of practicing would be minimized if blows could not be fully delivered. Protective gear is, thus, the preferred solution.
In an attempt to provide effective protection for the participants, a number of protective glove devices have been designed and are available commercially. To achieve the primary objective of safety, any such device must afford protection to the wearer, yet permit freedom of movement so that the wearer may effectively participate in the activity as intended. Because of the strenuous activity by the wearer while using any such protective device, it must be lightweight and preferably cover only those areas requiring protection so as to minimize any weight burden while permitting maximum ventilation.
Typical devices designed in an effort to achieve these objectives are described in the patent literature exemplified by U.S. Pat. Nos. Des.255,393; 3,855,633; 3,945,045; and 4,417,359. Preferred forms of such devices provide protection while permitting the hand sufficient freedom of movement to be able to deliver both blows, such as knifehand blows (commonly called "chops"), in an open hand, finger extended position with the side of the hand acting as the point of contact and blows in a closed hand, fist position with the knuckles and the backs of the fingers between the knuckles and first joints (proximal phalanges) acting as the point of contact. Such gloves usually have a rear portion to protect and attach to the wrist and a front portion to cover the back of the hand and fingers. The front portion may be held in place by a strap extending across the palm, and one or more loops may be provided through which the fingers extend to draw the inside of the front portion toward the rear portion to maintain close contact with the back of the fingers and tighten the glove when the hand is closed into a fist. Side and thumb portions are often provided to protect the blade side of the hand and thumb, and it is common to thicken the glove in the region that will cover the knuckles and proximal phalanges when the glove is drawn in on the fist.
The loops on the inner surface of the front portions of prior art karate protective gloves have been found to interfere with the forming of the fist by either unnecessarily confining the fingers or by nonuniformally influencing the closing of the hand or drawing in of the glove. A typical arrangement for drawing the glove in tightly in making the fist utilizes a single loop formed by a laterally extending strip connected at each of its ends to the inner surface of the front portion of the glove and through which two or more fingers extend as shown in the '633. '045 and '359 patents. The '393 patent shows an arrangement in which the strip is also connected to the inner surface at intermediate points to provide four separate loops through which each individual finger is passed. The loop or loops are typically arranged to extend across the fronts of the fingers between the second and third joints (middle phalanges).
In arrangements, such as shown in the '393 patent, in which all four fingers are separately looped, the first and fourth fingers (index and little fingers) are unduly restricted and the strip is connected adjacent the lateral edges of the glove, thereby providing protrusions that could potentially inadvertently cause injury by scraping an eye, etc. and requiring that the edges of the glove be drawn inwardly and centrally with the fingers when the fist is closed. Arrangements in which only the second and third fingers (middle and ring fingers) are looped avoid the undesirable lateral edge glove connection but interfere with uniformly closing the fist because only two of the fingers close around the strip and only those two fingers experience the force that draws the glove around the fist. Moreover, the parts of the strip that connect to the inner surface and run alongside the fingers are pulled inwardly and centrally at an angle, along a direction tending to tear the strip away from the inner surface.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome these and other disadvantages of the prior art protective gloves through improvements thereto, and especially improvements to the means gripped by the fingers to draw the gloves in tightly against the back of the hand and fingers when a fist is made.